News Article

Sony Expects to Remain in the Red Next Year As Well

Sony’s the corporate equivalent of one of those kids that drops a fiver on the floor and refuses to pick it up because that would be deemed ‘uncool’. Despite confirming an expected loss of $1.26 billion overnight, the Japanese giant has admitted that it’ll remain in the red next year as well – predicting a negative number of approximately $487 million. The harrowing figures can be attributed to the costly restructuring process that the company’s currently undertaking, which it promises will be completed this time next year. Remember what happened to the man who cried wolf?

While that’s the bad news out of the way, the Japanese giant can take heart from several improvements around its business. For starters, overall sales were up by 14.3 per cent for the fiscal year just finished, totalling an eye watering $76 billion. Moreover, sales of the PlayStation 4 are shaping up very nicely, with seven million units already moved. While it saw a decline in home console sales this past year overall – down from 16.5 million to 14.6 million – it anticipates numbers in the region of 17 million for the coming year. We guess that could go higher if the PS4 really catches fire at Christmas.

Despite all of this, the game division still posted a $78 million loss for the past fiscal year, which was attributed to the costs associated with launching a new console. Given the success of the system, we think that it’ll consider that a reasonable investment. Much less triumphant, however, was the firm’s portable business, which moved just 4.1 million pieces of hardware last year, and is expected to hit a measly 3.5 million units next time around. The platform holder expects boosted software sales and network services revenue to steady the ship, though.

With yet another loss on the horizon, it’s hard to find the positives in this latest report – but we think that gaffer Kaz Hirai would point to the firm’s overall improved sales as proof that it’s heading in the right direction. The problem remains that the colossal size of the company is wiping its revenue out. The ex-PlayStation president has made moves to trim the fat over the past couple of years – selling off buildings, stocks, and factories to keep costs down – but it looks like he still needs more time to finish the job. Let’s hope that there’s light at the end of the tunnel after the next twelve months.

Yeesh, already expecting such a big loss an entire year from now, not good. It'll be higher than that by the time that fiscal year ends too. Hell, this last posting went from a $1.1billion loss to $1.3billion in a matter of months.

To think they have the biggest console launch in history and the game division still posted a $78million dollar loss. Hopefully they have a lot of PS4 software lined up and arent keeping all their eggs in the Morpheus basket, because another peripheral wont do them any favors now.

Well, Sony can take quite a bit of losses, in fact they could probably still support losses for the next 8 to 10 years if they really had to. You guys need to stop thinking about Microsoft when it comes to Sony taking losses. Sony still has a HUGE reserve and lets not forget the back end bankroll sony has, they've only been in Business for what....50+ years now? LOL

They're very big in terms of total raw assets so they can take quite a hit. At worst they'll have to downsize and simply fall back to their most profitable divisions and let go the rest. They haven't hit the panic button yet and I don't think there's a reason to but I have absolutely no insight in their business budgetting whatsoever so I'm not the one to judge.

They've already been downsizing. I believe they are doing everything early on to avoid a bigger loss later on down the road, better now than later. Sony will be fine. It takes a lot of work to turn a company around, especially when you have a dufus like Howard Stringer (aka jabba the hut) calling the shots a few years ago. that guy really screwed up a lot of stuff and I think one of Sony's biggest mistakes was keeping that guy in for as long as they did. eeeeesh

The PlayStation brand is my passion and that will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future but it's becoming apparent that there's a real risk of PlayStation being underfunded. There are some new kids on the block now in the form of Samsung, Google, Apple, Amazon, etc. and they have extremely good credit ratings meaning that they'll be able to get all the funding they need. If any of them were to make a strategic move into hardcore gaming then I fear that Sony would have big problems keeping pace. It's sad but I can't live in denial about that.

Eh, fiscal year 2012 is the only year I can think of that the PS division didn't post a loss. Unfortunately.

The loss isn't that much this time around, all things considered. I mean, back in fiscal year 2011 the Playstation Division lost $2.8 BILLION. 78 million is chump change, it really is. Especially considering the launch of the new hardware and poor Vita sales. I know this isn't good news, but it's good news. Know what I mean?

Sony will be fine. PS Division has posted quite a few losses since the PS3, and they're still chugging along just fine. Nintendo's posting losses, Xbox loses on average $2 billion a year... everyone's posting losses, and has been for some time. Idk, they do need to sort it out because obviously a successful console shouldn't have a division losing money, but it's nothing to be concerned about. Sony (as well as MS/Ninty) isn't going anywhere. It's just numbers people. Nothing to see here... Move along.

people here are taking this so lightly but the fact is sony could not be more in trouble than right now, the main sony business besides ps are tv's and pc's which both business are basically broken they already lost walkman, I do not know how long time sony can handle those lost but I hope sony don't ending selling out the ps brand in the near future.

@Demi_God The main problem is that Playstation is their only competitive division, at least in my opinion. VAIO, TVs, etc. really are not competitive because other companies are pricing lower, and Sony's products really don't do much that's worth the higher price